by Anne Bennett
Well, I know you will think it’s silly and maybe will be cross with me,’ Aggie began, ‘but he is coming here to teach me, and being the nephew of your cook and all, he’ll know what I am.’
Levingstone shrugged. ‘So? What of it?’
‘He won’t think that I’m fair game?’
‘I can’t tell you what he might think,’ Levingstone said. ‘A man’s thoughts are his own affair, but I can’t seem to stress this enough for you. This man will not lay one hand on you, and what’s more, he will treat you with respect or he will have to answer to me.’
Aggie doubted that until she met the two men. Tim Furey was younger than Colm and far more handsome. He had a fine head of black curly hair atop a round, open face with merry eyes, and a wide mouth that turned up slightly so that it looked as though he was constantly smiling.
Colm, on the other hand, was just beginning to go bald, and his face and nose were slightly on the long side. His mouth tended to be thin, which gave his face a mournful look. His saving grace, however, was his deep, dark brown eyes that could light up his face when something pleased him.
And Aggie pleased him because when he saw her dance he knew that she had a rare and very beautiful talent. He thought it a crying shame that she was going to dance to a crowd of leering men, who wouldn’t care about the dance at all and would just want to maul and abuse her young body. In fact, he thought it somewhat obscene. He portrayed none of this in his manner to her, but Aggie saw his speculative eyes on her more than once.
As far as Tim was concerned, Aggie was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and still had a naïvety and vulnerability about her, which was strange when he considered the future that was mapped out for her.
When he said some of this to Colm, though, he was quite sharp with him for his own thoughts about Aggie were in turmoil.
‘We are here to teach young Aggie dancing, and that is all. The rest is none of our business. Never say these things to Aggie either, for if she was to repeat them to Levingstone, we would soon be out on our ear. Anyway, you were glad enough to take the job on when I offered it to you.’
‘I hadn’t met the girl then, nor seen her dance.’
‘That shouldn’t make any difference.’
‘It’s the thought of all those men ogling her and worse,’ Tim said. ‘She is so young and I know it’s daft, given what she does, but she looks sort of untouched.’
‘Strangely, I know just what you mean,’ Colm said. ‘She isn’t going down to the club yet, though. My aunt told me that much. She said the master is keeping her for himself. He does that sometimes with a girl that takes his fancy, and then, when he tires of her, she joins the others.’
‘That’s monstrous!’ Tim exclaimed. ‘And the man is old enough to be her father, at least.’
‘That’s life,’ Colm said with a shrug. ‘And however old he is, at the moment the love of his life is Aggie and she shares his bed every night. Now tell me, does the girl look unhappy?’
‘Well, no, she doesn’t,’ Tim had to admit.
‘Levingstone is caring for her in one way,’ Colm said. ‘What sort of life would she have on the streets?’
‘Has she no parents? No one at all to care for her?’
‘What do you think?’ Colm said. ‘Would she be here if she had?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Right, so you just stick to the job you’re paid to do and whatever way we feel about it, for both our sakes we will keep our mouths shut.’
At first when Tim played his fiddle, Aggie couldn’t help remembering an earlier, simpler time when she would dance to the sound of Tom’s fiddle and sometimes Joe’s tin whistle for their parents’ amusement. Colm wondered what she was thinking about because she often looked a little forlorn. He didn’t ask, but stuck to the job he was there to do.
Aggie would probably not have told him anyway. She acknowledged that Colm bore not the slightest resemblance to McAllister, which in turn made her relax more, and so Colm saw her improving week by week. When the memories threatened to overwhelm her, she used the tinctures of opium, which helped chase them away.
They had decided from the first to use the foyer of the club as a dance floor. It was deserted when they practised in the morning, for none of the girls was an early riser and the foyer was far enough away from the bedrooms so that no one was disturbed.
Colm would keep Aggie hard at it, often making her go over the same movement again and again until her muscles ached and her toes throbbed. She never complained, though, and only when Colm was satisfied would he release her. Aggie would always be starving, for Colm didn’t allow her to eat before that first practice and so she would tuck gratefully into the breakfast she shared with Levingstone and tell him how the dancing had gone.
After they had eaten, Aggie was allowed to rest until the afternoon, when she would have another gruelling practice. The other girls were awake by this time and many would drift along to watch. Aggie was intrigued by the girls who worked in the club, knowing that eventually, when Levingstone decreed, she would be joining them.
They were impressed by her dancing ability and told her so candidly, though some were envious that Levingstone thought so much of her. Many of them had shared his bed, maybe for a few days or a few weeks, and since Aggie’s arrival he had taken little notice of any of them.
One old hand at the club, Rita, still felt resentful about this, and she lost no time in warning Aggie, ‘Don’t think you are set for life with him. You’ll do till something better comes along. He was all over me like a rash for a few months, and then one day I found myself down here. Now it is your turn, and in a couple of weeks it will be someone else’s. You are just one in a long line and don’t you forget it.’
When Aggie said nothing, another girl, Brenda, said with a grin, ‘You don’t believe her, do you? She is right, though. Just enjoy it while you can, I say.’
‘Yes,’ said another, called Patsy, ‘and while he thinks you are the tops, screw as much money as you can out of the old bugger.’ And the girls laughed together.
A month after the order was placed, the completed Irish costumes were delivered and Levingstone demanded that Aggie put them on and model them for him. For the white costume, Aggie had chosen a simple design of spirals and coils on the brooch that fastened the cloak, and this design was embroidered around the neck and hemline of the dress. She wore it with the black stockings and soft shoes. For the yellow dress she had chosen a more intricate design on the brooch of six intertwined serpents, which Mrs Flaherty had told her was a detail from the opening text from St Mark’s Gospel in the Book of Kells. Here again the design had been embroidered on to the dress and with that dress she wore shiny black shoes.
Aggie had tied her hair back with one of the ribbons that Levingstone had bought her on their shopping trip and he thought he had seldom seen anyone lovelier. He knew with a pang that he wouldn’t have her totally to himself for much longer. He had been promising the punters a surprise for some time now.
When they saw her and watched her dance, he knew they would want her for themselves, and there were some people he really couldn’t afford to offend. He tried to tell himself that that was life and she was just another girl, but he knew that she wasn’t. She had got under his skin in a way that none of the others had, and was even sharing his bed in his apartment. No girl had done that before. He valued his privacy in his own rooms and any girls that he had had living with him before had used the guest room.
Aggie didn’t know this, of course, but she hadn’t been there a week when he had asked her into his bed.
Aggie knew that she had pleased him with her dancing and so she asked for something that had been in her head for some time, waiting for the right opportunity to broach it.
‘Alan, could I possibly see Lily and the others sometimes?’
Levingstone’s face darkened. ‘Haven’t you everything you would ever want here?’ he asked. ‘I have done everything to make you happy.’
‘You are kindness itself to me,’ Aggie said, quick to reassure him. ‘I am happy and I have everything here for my comfort.’
‘Look at the beautiful and classy clothes you have to wear.’
‘I am grateful to you for buying me such things,’ Aggie said, choosing her words with care, ‘but you see, no one but you sees them. I go nowhere and see no one but you. Mary and I might exchange the odd word and I talk to the girls downstairs sometimes, after I have finished practising. But you must admit, Alan, that apart from going out with you to choose the clothes and be fitted for the Irish costumes, I haven’t once left this place since I moved into it in mid-March and sometimes I am lonely.’
‘I don’t know that I want you to be too friendly with those old lags,’ Levingstone said. ‘You’re more than a cut above them.’
‘Don’t talk about them like that,’ Aggie answered reprovingly. ‘They are surely what society has made them. Anyway, am I any better?’
‘Of course you are,’ Levingstone said. ‘You are my woman, that’s the difference.’
‘Lily and Susie saved my life,’ Aggie reminded him, ‘and then Lily nursed me for weeks; gave up her bed and everything. Without them, Lily in particular, I wouldn’t be here. Doesn’t something like that deserve a bit of loyalty? Anyway, they are the only people I know in the whole of Birmingham and the ones who befriended me when I was desperate and destitute.’
‘Well, I agree you might owe Lily at least some sort of debt,’ Levingstone conceded at last, ‘and she is all right, is Lily – best of the bunch – but I don’t want you walking about the streets alone because they are not safe, particularly around there. So when I collect the rents this Saturday you can come with me. Will that suit?’
It wasn’t exactly what Aggie wanted and she hoped that Levingstone wasn’t going to stay with her for the duration of the visit because she could hardly be completely natural with Lily and the others if he did. However, she knew that that concession was all she was going to get – this time, anyway. So she wound her arms around him and kissed him slowly and lingeringly on the lips, and when he pushed her gently away moments later he was smiling.
‘You, my dear, are a minx,’ he said. ‘I have to admit that no woman has ever got around me the way you are able to.’
‘Well, aren’t you the sight for sore eyes?’ Lily said in delight at finding Aggie on the doorstep with Levingstone.
‘She was fretting and so I brought her to see you all,’ Levingstone said.
‘And why not?’ Lily flung the door wide. ‘Come in, come in.’
‘No, I won’t,’ Levingstone said. ‘I have some business in town. No rest for some of us, even on a Saturday.’
‘You must have been very wicked in a previous life,’ Lily pointed out.
Levingstone laughed. ‘That must have been it. Now,’ he said, turning to Aggie, ‘this won’t take all day. An hour, two at the most. That all right?’
Aggie turned to Lily, grinning. ‘Can you put up with me for so long?’
‘As long as you like, ducks,’ Lily said. ‘You can stay all bleeding day if you like. I’ve nothing spoiling.’
‘Right, I will be off then,’ Levingstone said. Before setting off down the street he drew Aggie into his arms and kissed her gently. The action wasn’t lost on Lily, and she smiled inwardly. Obviously the girl had played her cards well and had the man fair besotted with her, so far anyway.
She barely waited until the door had shut behind Levingstone before catching up Aggie’s arms. ‘Will you look at the cut of you,’ she said. ‘That coat must have cost a pretty penny.’
‘It did,’ Aggie said, ‘and the hat,’ and she spun around so that the skirt billowed out and then settled again, just touching the tops of her button boots. ‘And that isn’t all. I have three silk blouses of the prettiest colours and two skirts to wear with them. I have two day dresses too, and three for evening, and underwear galore, the softest and prettiest imaginable.’
She removed her hat and, handing it to Lily, said, ‘I have one of the blouses on now, in peach, see?’ removing her coat as she spoke. Lily saw the beautiful, shimmering silk blouse with ruffled lace neck, fastened with mother-of-pearl buttons, which was complemented so well by the navy skirt in heavy velvet.
‘Oh, girl,’ she breathed, ‘you look the business, really you do. I am that glad for you and I know the others will be. He is kind to you, then?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘In all ways, I mean,’ Lily said, and Aggie met her gaze levelly.
‘Yes, in all ways, Lily.’
‘Come away in and see the others,’ Lily said, leading the way. ‘We often talk of you and wonder how you are getting on.’
‘I’m getting on just grand,’ Aggie said.
Susie, and a girl called Janey, who were in the sitting room, seemed to agree with that sentiment. Susie declared they seldom had someone so grandly dressed knocking on their door, and she made Aggie parade up and down and give them all a twirl to show the full effect of the clothes.
‘Soon you will be too grand to visit the likes of us,’ Susie said, but Aggie shook her head emphatically.
‘I’ll never be that. I know how much I owe you all – you and Lily particularly, of course, but all of you for being my friends, the only ones I have. I told Alan the same and that is why he brought me. I know he will do it again.’
‘You are very sure of yourself.’
‘I’m very sure of Alan Levingstone,’ Aggie said. ‘Let me tell you what he has done about having Irish costumes made and all, and the Irish dance teacher and fiddler engaged.’
‘Soon have you down the club then, I’d say,’ Lily remarked.
‘I think so,’ Aggie agreed but added, ‘He doesn’t want me to go with any of the men yet, though. He said he wants me for himself.’ She saw the women exchange glances. ‘What is it?’
‘Look, bab,’ Lily said, ‘look but don’t touch will only work for a bit. The people going to that club pay big money to touch. And they are important people, influential, like. You remember I told you this before?’
‘Aye, I remember.’
‘It’s as well to be prepared, that’s all,’ Susie told Aggie.
‘I know that that day will come, followed by years of the same, and that is the one thing that scares me,’ Aggie admitted. ‘Levingstone is gentle and kind, but the man who raped me in Ireland was anything but.’
‘I know just what you mean,’ Janey said. ‘I had this awful old bugger yesterday and, Christ, I thought that he was going to rip me in two.’
‘That’s what McAllister was like,’ Aggie said. ‘It’s one of the things I am afraid of when I do go down to the club and I know too that I will be filled with shame.’
‘Now you listen to me,’ Lily said. ‘Don’t you think we all haven’t had these feelings from time to time? I’ll tell you now these fine principles are all very well when you have a full belly and a roof over your head.’
‘We provide a service,’ Susie said.
‘Do you really think that?’
‘Course I do,’ Susie maintained.
‘There wouldn’t be any need for prostitutes if there weren’t men that needed them and used them,’ Janey added.
‘Yeah,’ Lily agreed. ‘Can you see us walking the streets for the fun of it? I’d stick to me own fireside if there weren’t blokes out there out for a bit of slap and tickle, or a bit of the other, and prepared to pay for the privilege. This keeps me out the workhouse, Aggie. Think on that.’
‘Anyroad,’ Janey said, ‘this is neither here nor there. Whatever the fellers are like, you will have to cover your distaste and disgust and hide any pain or discomfort inflicted. If you don’t please them and they complain to Levingstone, your fine life could come to an end in no time at all.’
‘I know,’ Aggie said. ‘It scares me that I won’t be able to do that.’
‘Course you will,’ Lily said. ‘The opium will help, especially mixed with plenty of gi
n. Nothing will bother you if you have enough.’
‘And talking about gin,’ Susie said, ‘we could all have a drop now, couldn’t we?’
‘Yeah,’ Lily agreed. ‘Get the glasses out and we will toast Aggie’s future.’
‘Aggie’s future,’ they chorused a few minutes later as the glasses chinked, and Lily added, ‘And long may fate continue to shine on her.’
‘Amen,’ Aggie said, but silently to herself.
TEN
Three weeks after the costumes were delivered, and on a Friday afternoon, Levingstone came to watch Aggie practising. He had known that she was good the first time she had danced for him, but he plainly saw how much she had improved.
He had insisted she wore the proper costumes and the shoes, and performed a variety of dances for him. She seemed to fly as she danced the jigs and reels in her soft shoes. The intricate footwork left him spellbound, and she leaped and twirled and turned until he was dizzy. As for the hornpipes and some of the polkas, the click of her shiny hard shoes emphasised the foot movements and engendered excitement in him that seeped all through his body.
When Colm eventually drew Aggie to a halt, she was breathless, her cheeks dusted pink with the exertion, and yet her eyes sparkled as she faced Levingstone and asked with a smile, ‘Was that all right?’
The man gazed at her, mesmerised by both her beauty and her ability as he said, ‘Oh, my darling girl, you were much, much more than all right.’ He glanced over to Colm. ‘You have done well.’
Colm shrugged. ‘It’s easy to work on good material,’ he said. ‘Aggie has a talent seldom seen.’
He nearly added, ‘Far too good for this place,’ but he stopped himself in time. What bloody good would it do if he was to spout that out? He knew that Tim felt the same – his face often gave him away – and when Levingstone said to Aggie, ‘I want you down the club tomorrow,’ and he saw the colour drain from her face, he heard the sharp intake of breath from Tim.
Thankfully, Levingstone did not hear Tim’s reaction, because he had eyes only for Aggie. But he could almost feel the apprehension running through her, and it annoyed him. ‘Come, come, Agnes,’ he said. ‘Don’t look like that. You knew what you were working towards from the beginning. Isn’t that so?’